A carousel and Ferris wheel stand in front of rolling hillsides and, in silhouette and from a particular vantage point, this could be anywhere. But this is not anywhere. Zoom in a little bit and you’ll see rusted metal that creaks as the machines turn, a sandy playground littered with empty bottles and cigarette butts where small children vie for the swings that aren’t broken, and a flock of women in hijab watching closely. Zoom in a little closer. The women are now joining their children on the flying swings that whip around much faster than they should. The women’s faces are happy and creaseless and their kids—their babies—laugh with total abandon. The yellow-painted, dancing elephant-covered column that serves as this ride’s base sways enough to worry me and the group of young adults with whom I am travelling. We exchange raised eyebrows as we watch the 17-year old boy who is manning this giant machine. As if we are his mothers, as if it is our place to step in. Suddenly I feel disgusted with myself.
Zoom out. We are in Huwara, a small village in the West Bank that borders Nablus and is surrounded by four Israeli settlements. The undulating landscape is the meeting place of two mountains, Mount Ebal and Mount Gerezim. Nestled in their valley is the ancient city of Nablus—biblical Shechem—today a sprawl of grey buildings zigzagging as far as the eye can see.
Take a second to zoom back in—who are we exactly? A group called “Windows—Channels for Communication.” This grassroots organization based in Tel Aviv-Yafo and Nablus, a project of Jewish Israelis, Palestinian citizens from Israel, and Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territories, has been functioning since 1990. The central mission of this NGO is to contribute to ending the occupation by creating dialogue among and, eventually, joint action youth within those three groups affected by the conflict plaguing this land. Along with 25 or so other college-ish aged students from around the world, I am interning at the Windows office this summer. Since I arrived two weeks ago, most of my days have been spent sitting in an air conditioned room on 41 Chlenov Street, trying to figure out what exactly this organization does and how I can best contribute to its many moving parts.
But starting this past Thursday, the latest group of Windows youth participated in a seminar, a four-day trip around Israel and Palestine. They would see with their own eyes—and through each other’s eyes—what they’ve been learning, discussing, and debating over the past two and a half years. The culmination of this adventure is a bus tour through various parts of the West Bank. This was a treat for the Jewish Israeli members of the group. An Israeli citizen visiting the West Bank—not settlements, but living, breathing Palestinian communities—is heavily frowned upon due to security concerns. Unless, of course, you’re in Madeim (the soldier’s uniform). But more on that another time.
And so, early Sunday morning we set off on a bus from Tel Aviv. I deem coffee unnecessary on my way to meet the group but can’t fight the sleep that drags me once I’m comfortably seated on the bus. When I wake up, I’ve missed our grand entrance into the territories. We’re in Ariel, one of the largest and most built-up settlements, stopping for a bathroom break. Without thinking about what I’m doing, I buy a coffee here. I was trying to prevent myself from falling asleep again and missing out on any second of my first trip into the region the politics of which I am so heavily engaged in. Alas, I ended up supporting the settler economy with an eight-shekel investment. I’ll make it up by buying ten-fold the price worth of knaffeh next time I visit Nablus or Ramallah.
Which brings us back to the Luna Park. Zoom out. The many villages and refugee camps and busy neighborhoods that make up the Nablus Governorate are not aesthetically surprising to a first-time visitor who has read up, even minimally, on the economic status of the West Bank. Most houses are concrete blocks with crumbling edges and unfinished roofs, rebar left reaching for the sun to enable the addition of another floor should better financial circumstances come to pass. The pave job and width of the roads, particularly within residential areas, make driving a slow and careful process. Families stroll and children run from one house to another happily, treading on the edges of the streets that cars use because separate sidewalks rarely exist. A falafel here costs 3 shekels, a meal that costs an average of 25 shekels on the other side of the Green Line. When our bus stops in Huwara for someone to grab medication from a pharmacy, a parade of men walks by—the ten men in the middle of this mass carry a coffin draped in floral tapestry. I can’t quite pinpoint what is wrong with this scene, but my gut feeling is that no one should ever have to weave through heavy traffic to fulfill the tradition of a funeral procession, avoiding veering cars with a deceased loved one on their back in order to get to the burial place.
I realize that none of this surprises me, and am immediately and utterly shocked by my own numbness. Because, zoom back in, the men who work in the Luna Park are eagerly trying to make conversation in English with all members of our group, even those who are very obviously Jewish looking (I’m talking about myself here). A friend of the owner is a facilitator of Windows youth group, and had allowed us to rent the space for discussion at the end of our bus tour. The teenagers working the rides make black coffee, fill twenty-some small cups, and hand them out. They then bring us bottles of mineral water. Soon, our discussion begins: it is framed as open-ended reflection among interns, facilitators, and youth about what we had seen that day. Window’s official policy is for group participants to speak in their native language (English, Hebrew, or Arabic), their sentiments clarified to the participants who don’t speak that language through a translator. To an outside viewer, this process may seem tedious. But years of experience have illuminated what might seem obvious to some: it is impossible to have honest and productive sharing if those partaking in the discussion cannot fully express themselves. Respecting mother tongue—and cultural and national tradition in general—is a key component of peace building work.
The conversation moves along slowly and carefully, a rickety train that, against all odds and only due to extreme precaution and preparation will not veer off its tracks. A boy from Nablus asks the Jewish Israelis how they felt when they saw settlements blossoming in this land. His words reveal hints of anger and hurt but, above all, a genuine curiosity and desire to understand the other. As the Israeli teenagers walk through their many feelings—confusion, sadness, fear, nonchalance, defensiveness—and try to sort out what they really want to say, the Palestinian men working in the park gather behind the group and listen thoughtfully. The discussion ends with the facilitator reminding the group that, as usual, “this discussion is never over”—and the Luna Park opens to the public. The carousel spins, little boys and girls fill the bumper cars, and a 17 year-old boy in a red t-shirt walks to the swing ride to operate its first run of the evening.
This amusement park, this city, the West Bank in general—none of it is just like anywhere else. But it should be. Throw political jargon out the window. A homeland for the Jews, self-determination for all people, security, terrorist, freedom fighter. All of these phrases, along with their heavy meanings, have a place in this conflict. And yet, a certain thought dawned on me as the bus lumbered back past the checkpoint and into the bubble that is Tel Aviv, a thought that hasn’t left me since. Before spitting words like those at one another, we should realize that this conflict, like all others, boils down to different groups of human beings who would like to enjoy their daily lives as they enjoy an evening at an amusement park—free of worry. Blissful—like the women on the swing ride I had deemed terrifyingly unsafe. That ride, to them, was an escape from a routine of borders and checkpoints and a failing economy and a solider with a loaded gun on every few street corners[1]. The same ride to someone within Israel proper could be an escape from bomb shelters, global anti-Semitism, and mandatory army service in one of the most active armies in the world. This conflict is between two people who want health, happiness, and peace—of mind, body, and soul. If that sounds like a load of crap, I’ll beat you to it and say that it usually sounds like a load of crap to me, too. On most days, I believe this conflict will end in a third World War before peace is achieved.
But this past Sunday was not most days. This past Sunday was the first opportunity I had to put a living, breathing face to the other side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That face is made of the people I met, the houses I saw, the garbled Arabic I spoke—responded to with only genuine enthusiasm, and the crippled amusement park I sat in.
I wish that I could offer a complex and well thought-out political argument in my first blog post from the region. There is no shortage of such content firing through my brain at this very moment—I can share some of that at another point. I can’t give it to you now, though, because on Sunday I walked on Palestinian soil[2] for the first time. I cannot begin to re-explore the deeper, uglier recesses of this conflict until I’ve made the following clear.
Today, I do not feel like I do on most days. Today, I can still taste the humanity of both nations—the one beyond the wall that greeted me with a wide smile and the one here, in Tel Aviv, where I truly feel at home. Go back further, and imagine that the British had never sliced this holy land and colonialist characteristics had never contaminated the Jewish liberation movement. Now that you’ve wiped your mind clean, I urge anyone who cares about this land to introduce himself or herself to people from as many of the numerous identity groups here, each suffering in its own way from the toxic situation. But don’t start with politics. Instead, start with “hello”. Once you’ve begun to grasp what this land could look like without conflict—once you’ve tasted the sweetness that comes with an image of real justice and peace—act as you wish. I’ll bet that, you too, will come to believe that this place might one day be like any other. The status quo is not only surprising, but also appalling and fear inducing, once you let the human comes first. Let’s rethink conflict resolution. Let’s start with people.
[1] True for areas B and C of the West Bank but not for area A. Nablus is area A.
[2] What “Palestinian soil” is brings up lots of questions. For some, all of Israel-Palestine is simply all Palestine; for others, none of it is rightfully Palestinian. Here I define Palestinian soil as land within the West Bank or Gaza, land most often recognized as a future state of Palestine.
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